Martyr!

by Kaveh Akbar

“I snapped at this woman at work today. I didn’t know her at all and I was shitty for no reason. And you know? It felt good. It felt so good, putting her on her heels like that. Being in control. We’re always talking in here about surrendering, surrendering. ‘Relieve me of the bondage of self, that I may better do thy will.’ Giving up control. But it’s those moments of rushing the cockpit where I actually feel anything anymore, where I remember who I am. Rushing the cockpit? Bad metaphor.” Cyrus smiled, took a deep breath. “There are no big decisions in my life. Mostly I just sit around listening to my brain saying the same shit over and over: ‘Wouldn’t you rather be masturbating?’ ‘Wouldn’t you rather be overwhelmed?’ And the answer is always, always yes, yes. I turn my headphones up till it hurts, act like a dick to a random woman just doing her job. Because it feels different than nothing. Which is all sobriety is. Nothing. Nothing in every direction. It used to be I’d only feel something if it was the most extreme ecstasy or the most incapacitating white-light pain. Drugs and booze sandpapered away everything else. But now everything is in this textureless middle.”